Hackers Take Aim at Republicans 1866
An anonymous reader writes "Wired reports-- Online protests targeting GOP websites could turn out to be more than symbolic during this month's Republican National Convention, possibly blocking a critical communications tool for the party... "We want to bombard (the Republican sites) with so much traffic that nobody can get in," said CrimethInc, a member of the so-called Black Hat Hackers Bloc. It's one of several groups planning to distribute software tools to reload Republican sites over and over again."
Take off your... (Score:1, Informative)
Also:
The intelligence gathering capabilities of:
- The US, - The UN, - Most of Europe, including the UK, France, and Germany; - Russia; - Some of Iraq's neighbors; - Iraq and Saddam Hussein himself;
believed Iraq to be in possession of significant quantities of WMD.
This is because:
- The US had long tracked Iraq's possession of WMD, considering we provided them with much of that capability (Let's take another brief tangential stroll down the lane of liberal hypocrisy: that the US once supported Saddam against Iran, and provided Iraq with some of its WMD capabilities is something often bandied about. Classically, it removes accountability for any actions in the intermediary, similar to blaming society wholly for the ills of an inner city youth, or a gun manufacturer for the actions of a criminal with a gun. Hypocritically, it ignores the position held by many in this same camp when Madison's own Progressive Magazine published The Secrets of the H-Bomb some 25 years ago, arguing vehemently [with a different agenda, of course] that the secrets of such weapons cannot and should not be kept by the Big Bad Government, because anyone who wanted to figure them out ultimately would anyway. And, indeed, that the blame would rest with the people who used them inappropriately, not the science behind them. Now, apparently, the US is directly to blame for Iraq having WMD. [Even though it didn't have any WMD...] See why it's difficult to keep up?)
- The UN had closely tracked Iraq's WMD capability for over a decade
- As a matter of course, most of Europe had done the same
- When Hussein accused UN weapons inspectors of being US spies in 1998, at which point the UN pulled the inspectors due to lack of effectiveness, Iraq was known by the UN to be in possession of significant quantities of WMD (e.g., amounts in the thousands of tons). Are we to believe that after all UN oversight was gone, that Iraq secretly and silently destroyed ALL of its WMD capability, without the knowledge of Hussein himself - who believed he was INCREASING his investment in WMD - and all without any records or evidence of such destruction? There are over 740 tons of Sarin alone unaccounted for. 740 tons out of a known 920 tons. Eighty percent. Where is it? (Well, it's in the Sudan, Libya, Syria, who knows?)
- This, of course, ignores the fact that Iraq was egregiously in violation, numerous times, of several binding UNSEC resolutions; resolutions which member nations are required, obligated, and compelled to enforce by the UN charter. The type of enforcement, of course, is up for debate; however, it's clear that the previous course of action was not only not working, it had gotten worse, and ultimately utterly failed. While it also, according to the left, was responsible for over half a million Iraqi deaths.
Let's also not forget the *650,000 tons* (yes, you read that right) of non-WMD UN-banned weapons found by coalition forces in Iraq. 650,000 tons, and counting.
Want to follow the money?
Ok, let's follow it.
During sanctions, tens of billions of dollars flowed into, in this order, France, Russia, and Germany for UNOFP contracts administration. TENS OF BILLIONS. Guess when that flow of money stopped? When the US and coalition countries initiated action in March 2003. Guess who didn't want that neverending money spigot turned off...? Thanks to criminal corruption within the UNOFP itself, we may never know the true amount of money that flowed.
Perhaps you should also wake the fuck up and realize that this whole mideast strategy IS NOT ABOUT WMD IN IRAQ. It's about forcibly killing Panislamic radicalism over the next several decades, perhaps in a generation, without letting it run its natural course over the next 2 to 3 centuries. Why have 9/11 and "Iraq" been discussed in the same context? Not because, as some liberals mindlessly drone that Bush and his "cronies" wanted to "fool" the American people into thinking that Iraq
Re:Not unexpected (Score:5, Informative)
You remember all the fuss last month when the Oregon Democrats flooded a Nader meeting in a limited-capacity hall with the explicit purpose of denying him ballot petition signatures, right? No? The New York Times managed to overlook it as well, although just a couple of days ago they managed to squeeze in one more story about imaginary roadblocks in Florida in 2000.
Re:Take off your... (Score:4, Informative)
The BND (the German CIA counterpart) stated they don't have evidence supporting this - they didn't have proof of non-existense of the alleged weapons either - but that's beside the point. Based on exactly THOSE issues, Germany did take its anti-war stance. There were (almost) no protests against the Afghan war, since people were convinced that the Taliban were in cahoots with Al Qaeda, but in the Iraq case, I have yet to meet a single compatriot that thought this war was justified...
Hint: Just because the republican Iraq war examination white-wash said "the Germans also said Iraq HAD WMD" doesn't neccessarily make it so.
The Germans happened to say, we ca NOT prove Saddam has NO weapons. But that's about the extend of it.
Germans don't like terror either - and there are people worried Germany might become a target for Al Qaeda terror cells as well. And as such, Germany would certainly support a war against any country openly supporting terrorism (or at least, a country that is proven to be supporting terrorism); but that doesn't mean to blindly follow Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld.
Disgusting. (Score:2, Informative)
I am just disgusted that a group of 12 year old children, self-proclaimed "defenders of freedom", would even think about doing this; are they not receiving any education from their parents these days? This is not only against any moral standards, it's outright against everything this country stands for - that is, if it still stands for anything. So now I can't share my viewpoint anymore because some immature person might not like what I have to say and DOS me? Come to my house and kill me? So much for upholding those great American values of "Democracy".
This story doesn't even merit making the Slashdot front page. I was under the impression that all of us here (even if we disagree with the policy of the current presidency) are smart and intelligent enough not support such actions.
I am disgusted by you CmdrTaco. This "news" is not even worthy of trash. "Hackers"? I "hacked"; and I sure as hell do not remember DOSing people because their viewpoints were not my own. I grew up in a country where that was case; and no, there you wouldn't get DOS'd for sharing a non-acceptable viewpoint. You'd get picked up by the secret police, beaten, totured, and maybe make it back to your family and freedom. No, when I was "hacking", I was educating myself - reading up on as much as I could computer related, I wrote my own shell code, did assembly on 4 processors, wrote C/C++/JAVA/... and a lot of other languages, worked on three emulators, and loved taking things apart, seeing how they worked, learning something new, getting some kind of new information - and all of this before I ever turned 18. Do NOT associate the actions of these immature people with hacking. It's revolting.
Shame on you CmdrTaco.
Marius
Re:This is being done by Republican-SUPPORTERS, ri (Score:2, Informative)
BBC [bbc.co.uk]
That's the episode he's referring to. Surprised that someone who obviously gets their news from the "better" news sources wouldn't have seen this.
Re:The whole idea is crazy (Score:3, Informative)
Re:This is being done by Republican-SUPPORTERS, ri (Score:4, Informative)
a) a page reloading script certainly shouldn't all that a hacker is capable of - but since they want people to voluntarily take part in this, they can't resort to illegal things. And page reloading can hardly be deemed illegal.
b) If you DO want to personally criticise someone (and I think "You yourself are an idiot" easily qualifies for that), then at least don't hide behind an "Anonymous Coward" mask.
Re:Stupid, Stupid, Stupid (Score:5, Informative)
Read this [msn.com].
Phil Singer, a spokesman for Kerry, said Thursday that Cheney was being disingenuous and was twisting Kerry's words. Singer noted that President Bush had also used the word "sensitive."
"Dick Cheney's desperate misleading attacks now have him criticizing George Bush's own words, who called for America to be 'sensitive about expressing our power and influence,'" Singer said.
Re:This is being done by Republican-SUPPORTERS, ri (Score:1, Informative)
Re:This is being done by Republican-SUPPORTERS, ri (Score:3, Informative)
Re:This is being done by Republican-SUPPORTERS, ri (Score:2, Informative)
RE: 1968 (Score:3, Informative)
This is somewhat similar to today's free speech zones; although somewhat less severe.
Re:Take off your... (Score:1, Informative)
I understand the cause; a government stifling its people.
How do you propose that we attack these "root causes" without first taking out the government that would have prevented us from doing anything? (Study what has happened to North Korean "aid".)
I think people like you underestimate the Republicans. They are attacking the root causes. They just aren't so disconnected from the real world to think that the mere insertion of money into a fundamnentally corrupt system is going to fix anything. First, the system must be reformed, and that takes, you know, bombs.
I'd love to call myself a liberal; in the classic sense I am one. I find it ironic that the people calling themselves "liberals" aren't; they're just people who view the world through seriously rose-colored glasses and somehow their moral purity magically convinces Saddam to stop being a tyrant and then their moral purity remotely converts Iraq into the wonderland it would be without Bush, with at most the donation of a few dollars and a couple of protest rallies.... conducted in the US, where they can't do any good. I say "magic" because I'm yet to hear a plausible way that "understanding root causes" will effect any change, without exactly the actions we've taken. (Most of them seem to focus on an awful lot of magic on the part of Saddam, and all of his would-be successors.)
That's why I'm going to hold my nose and vote Bush; he isn't doing perfect but his view of the world is a hell of a lot more clear then the Left's is right now, which is really certain that if it were in charge, basically, things would just work out magically; I haven't heard a concrete plan at all.
Re:Take off your... (Score:5, Informative)
Sarin is a gas. But let's ignore that, and suppose that it's a liquid and can be easily transported in drums.
Actually, Sarin is a liquid that vaporizes at room temperature. So it is a liquid, and CAN be easily transported in drums.
Re:This is being done by Republican-SUPPORTERS, ri (Score:2, Informative)
I have some student loans left that amount to a few $K, however, I make a decent salary. Relative to my salary, my indebtedness is quite low. That's why I get offers for 0% rate credit cards all the time (I don't use credit cards and have no other debt). There are plenty of people in the world for whom a debt of a few hundred dollars would be overwhelming because of its relative size to its income.
The USA does have the biggest debt of any nation, however, relative to its GDP it isn't bad. Sweden for example, has a much, much greater debt to GDP ratio.
Not that I'm making excuses for the US debt, but it is misleading to claim the World Bank or IMF are being unfair to Argentina.
Re:The whole idea is crazy (Score:2, Informative)
Re:What goes around, comes around. (Score:4, Informative)
Well, Hitler too did things because he had "clear" beliefs... and he stuck to them. So what is your point? He is not the president to stick to his beliefs, but to work for the American people.
According to you then, a lemming would be the ideal democratic leader, right? I have newsflash for you a democracy means that there are many different beliefs, a president has to be able to accomodate most of them, w/o having to impose his own. You want a dictator, not a president...
And please don't come up with the whole "moral clarity vs. flip/flopping" crap, not like Dubya has ever flip/flopped, no siree bob:
1. Social Security Surplus
BUSH PLEDGES NOT TO TOUCH SOCIAL SECURITY SURPLUS... "We're going to keep the promise of Social Security and keep the government from raiding the Social Security surplus." [President Bush, 3/3/01]
2. Patient's Right to Sue
GOVERNOR BUSH VETOES PATIENTS' RIGHT TO SUE... "Despite his campaign rhetoric in favor of a patients' bill of rights, Bush fought such a bill tooth and nail as Texas governor, vetoing a bill coauthored by Republican state Rep. John Smithee in 1995. He... constantly opposed a patient's right to sue an HMO over coverage denied that resulted in adverse health effects." [Salon, 2/7/01]
3. Tobacco Buyout
BUSH SUPPORTS CURRENT TOBACCO FARMERS' QUOTA SYSTEM... "They've got the quota system in place -- the allotment system -- and I don't think that needs to be changed." [President Bush, 5/04]
4. North Korea
BUSH WILL NOT OFFER NUCLEAR NORTH KOREA INCENTIVES TO DISARM... "We developed a bold approach under which, if the North addressed our long-standing concerns, the United States was prepared to take important steps that would have significantly improved the lives of the North Korean people. Now that North Korea's covert nuclear weapons program has come to light, we are unable to pursue this approach." [President's Statement, 11/15/02]
Re:DOSers are lowlifes! (Score:3, Informative)
I don't think these people are trying to "earn respect" or "demonstrate skills." I think they are trying to shut down specific web sites.
Note that I'm condoning this behavior, I just don't think this sort of insult has any sort of mitigating effect.
Re:This is being done by Republican-SUPPORTERS, ri (Score:3, Informative)
From the WFB:
Argentina purchasing power parity - $432.7 billion (2003 est.), external debt $142 billion (2002 est.)
USA purchasing power parity - $10.98 trillion (2003 est.), external debt $1.4 trillion (2001 est.)
I agree with all your figures apart from the USA external debt (the national debt value quoted in the WFB is for 1995 -- where did your value of $1.4 trillion come from?). Consider the following report:
That paints a rather different picture, doesn't it? Based on these figures, the USA appears to be more overextended than Argentina, not less.
that link is irrelevant (Score:5, Informative)
Some ballpark figures for assets, drawn partly from here [64.233.161.104]:
Kerry (incl. wife): $500 to $600 million
Cheney: $17 to $85 million
Edwards: ~$19 million
Bush: $6 to $14 million
So as you can see, even if those numbers are off by a lot, Kerry is still the richest by far, and Bush is the poorest of the four.
Not myth - misleading... (Score:2, Informative)
As to the Humble people, I have yet to see a humble person, although, I think a lot of politicans on both sides of the isle should take an example of the current Jimmy Carter.. Serving people, not being served. He's done a better job out of the white house than in it.
As to the President Lincoln argument, take a break and look at what Lincoln wanted to do with the freed slaves: ship them out of the country!!! (Don't take my word for it, look in his memoirs.. I had a class on Abe Lincoln).
Here's one for you: What side of the firehoses were the conservatives on, in the 60's?
Re:Lives have actually been saved (Score:1, Informative)
Re:This is being done by Republican-SUPPORTERS, ri (Score:3, Informative)
National Debt (well, basically embezzlement by the politicians and their cronies) is just one reason. Take a look at the last page of this link and see pure embezzlement from our government: embezzlement? [senate.gov]. Who's stupid enough to vote for an incumbant? Bush and Kerry are both incumbants. They should both tear their clothes, gnash their teeth, and ask the American people to pray for a better government. They don't.
I was looking at the debt before and got some numbers from various US gov. web sites. Amazingly the dis-information campaign has not shut these down. Funny thing is that it has increased ever since like 1962 but Democrats claim Clinton had a Balanced Budget. This FALSE accounting is nonsense. Ask a kid in school if spending more than you take in is a Balanced Budget. That said, the administration prior to this one did do alot better. The USA cannot afford another Republican government if you believe that relates to the debt trendline. We will be bankrupted and forced into servitude to a world government/bank. "Don't cry for me Argentina...."
First look at the situation for UK and Canada. UK [tutor2u.net]
Canada [ucalgary.ca]
These can be graphed in Excel... I did not find a good site with the chart on the web.
Re:True (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Lives have actually been saved (Score:3, Informative)
1: It would be nice to have a better feeling that we were not misled into the war. If the above was the true thinking of the administration about why to enter the war, it would have been good to have expressed that up front.
2: On WWII, there were politics involved in that war as well, but the provocation was much more direct (I.E. Japan's raid on Pearl Harbor, Germany's declaration of war (the real thing Roosevelt wanted, but not guaranteed by anything the Japanese did...)) Distance has dimmed things a bit, so it is harder to see today. Also the nature of news reporting has changed. In WWII, you got a condensed version with censoring, no TV pictures of our dead each night, and I think few headlines blaring the number of killed in action from the night or week before. Contrast with Vietnam.
Re:Chicago 1968 and Seattle 1999 again.... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Myth (Score:5, Informative)
According to this August 7th article from Bloomberg (http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/business/a
Until Enron's collapse, Ken Lay - Enron's CEO - was George W. Bush's top benefactor. As to small donors vs. large see this (http://www.opensecrets.org/presidential/donordem
Bernie Ebbers Worldcom's disgraced former CEO was a huge Republican fund raiser, and Trent Lott's biggest benefactor.
The Saudi's (including the Bin Laden family) did sweethart deals for George W. Bush, bailing out two of his failed companies, and making him rich while the rest of the shareholders were left holding the bag.
Bush, by far - 57,218 to 26,911, outpaces Kerry in the $2,000+ donors category, and Kerry, again by a large margin - 35% of Kerry's donors compared to 28% of Bush's, outpaces Bush in the $200 or less category.
Please do check the facts yourself, and here's a hint: you won't find them on Rush Limbaugh's web site.
Same guy from DefCon (Score:5, Informative)
The report from newsforge is under Hacktivism.
http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=04/08/02/
I swear this sounds like a guy whose site I used to work on. I saw someone had posted a code snippet from their supposed DoS tool. The code looks like their caliber, shoddy. They are nothing more than an army of spotty faced kids who grew up in suburban areas, and are pissed because mommy and daddy didn't buy them a pony for their 5th birthday.
If I do find it is the same guy, I will post the URL to the Slashdot community, and you guys can sound off on their forums about what you think of their politics.
Re:Take off your... (Score:1, Informative)
You could provide some evidence, or at least be specific about which of his claims doesn't make sense, and even give some kind of comment the other way, like:
"Well, your bit about the war being pre-emptive isn't exactly correct, because if you do a google search, you can clearly find info on Saddam's WMD attack in Seattle."
See, that would be a great way to, as I like to say, "de-bunk" someone's argument. You cite their argument, and then say something that proves it wrong. Then, other people can go look up both your interpretation and his, and weigh them against eachother.
In my example, were I to do two google searches, one on "iraq bush preemptive war" and another on "iraq saddam wmd seattle attack"
Thanks!
Re:Chicago 1968 and Seattle 1999 again.... (Score:5, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Democratic_Na
Notice the Walker Report calls it a "police riot", not a student riot or anything else.
Seattle was a little different, as there was intent by a minority of the people there to cause some serious harm to property and persons, but once again lack of police discipline in exercising a proportionate response, inluding beating innocent bystanders, result in unecessary physical harm to protestors. There isn't much hope for law and order when your own police are disordered.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WTO_Meeting_of_199
Similar stuff happend in Miami for FTAA. The DNC was quiet because the police, due to a tip-off, managed to seize all of the urine, blood, faeces, etc. that the anarchists were going to use. I'm not sure how many anarchists were seized as well and held until the DNC was over, but I imagine there were quite a few.
The sad part is that it probably doesn't matter to you what the facts are. You like this current Republican administration only use apparent facts to support whatever your current agenda is and if those facts change, you just find or make up new ones to support your position without even considering changing your position. That is the definition of an idealogue, in other words someone who irrational believes in something, exactly what folks like you call, and rightfully so, the anarchists. So maybe you and the anarchists have more in common than you thought?
Re:Take off your... (Score:2, Informative)
In a revealing sidelight, the report quotes Richard C. Clarke -- yes, the former counterterrorism chief who has been claiming Osama bin Laden had no connection with Saddam's regime.
Yet Mr. Clarke opposed a U-2 flight to track down Osama in Afghanistan because the Pakistanis would need to be apprised of it and they, in turn, might let Osama know the Americans were about to bomb him. "Armed with that knowledge," Mr. Clarke warned, "old wily Osama will likely boogie to Baghdad." Once there, warned Clarke, he would put his terrorist network at Saddam's service, and it would be "virtually impossible" to track him down. It's all there on Page 134 of the commission's report. (Osama's actual meeting with one of Saddam Hussein's senior intelligence officers in late 1994 or early 1995 is mentioned earlier, on Page 61.)
If that's not enough to establish a Saddam-Osama connection, Mrs. Lincoln could take up the matter with Lee Hamilton, vice chairman of the September 11 Commission.
Re:Lives have actually been saved (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Lives have actually been saved (Score:2, Informative)
$ for the war
$ for the reconstruction
number of US/UK lives lost
cost of any future terrorist attack that may be carried out by someone recruited since Iraq war
current price of oil
the fact the large coalition of 100+ countries against terrorism has been destroyed by unilateral action
undermining UN
giving justification to the doctrine of preemption to other countries
probably many others
Anyway, if you come up with a figure then let me know.
Even just taking the $ amount, I could probably give you a list of 100 'projects' that US could have undertaken instead of Iraq that would have had better cost benefit.. ie 'more lives saved per buck'
for example:
treating TB (1000s dead per day)
AIDS
3 million people dead in war in D.R.Congo over last 5 years or so
canceling some 3rd world debt
Middle east peace process
If you really want to do good in the world why pick on probably the most costly option?
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Mods on crack (Score:3, Informative)
* That in the years immediately prior to the first Gulf War, Iraq produced at least 3.9 tons of VX, a deadly nerve gas, and acquired 805 tons of precursor ingredients for the production of more VX.
* That Iraq had produced or imported some 4,000 tons of ingredients to produce other types of poison gas.
* That Iraq had produced 8,500 liters of anthrax.
* That Iraq had produced 500 bombs fitted with parachutes for the purpose of delivering poison gas or germ payloads.
* That Iraq had produced 550 artillery shells filled with mustard gas.
* That Iraq had produced or imported 107,500 casings for chemical weapons.
* That Iraq had produced at least 157 aerial bombs filled with germ agents.
* That Iraq had produced 25 missile warheads containing germ agents (anthrax, aflatoxin, and botulinum).
Again, this list of weapons of mass destruction is not what the Iraqi government was suspected of producing. (That would be a longer list, including an Iraqi nuclear program that the German intelligence service had concluded in 2001 might produce a bomb within three years.) It was what the Iraqis admitted producing. And it is this list of weapons--not any CIA analysis under either the Clinton or Bush administrations--that has been at the heart of the Iraq crisis.
Read more here: http://www.weeklystandard.com/content/public/arti
This isn't rocket science. For those of you with ADD or memory problems, the issue before the invasion of Iraq wasn't whether Iraq HAD WMDs; it was what to DO about it.
- Alaska Jack
Re:This is being done by Republican-SUPPORTERS, ri (Score:3, Informative)
Moderate liberal agenda? From the guy with the most liberal voting record in the Senate [govexec.com]? Even farther left than Teddy "nutjob" Kennedy, and Hillary Clinton.
Swift Boat Liars for Bush (Score:3, Informative)
A systematic take-down [eriposte.com] of Swift Boat Liars. They don't even past the laugh test.